Normality “Lo-Normali” (ambiguous Hebrew slang for ‘abnormal, crazy, exceptional, wonderful, insane, magnificent) synthesizes itwo previously published documentaries, “The City that Never Sleeps” and “Jerusalem Journal.” Although the editing is different, the message remains the same. It presents contrasts between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and within each of the two cities as a showcase intended to defeat misconceptions about Israel’s reality.

Normality usually does not produce headlines. Stories related to terrorism, war and political scandals on the negative side, and innovations in science and technology on the positive does. During the five months that I spent in Israel in 2016, a focused my attention on capturing images of everyday life: riding a bus, walking by the beach, witnessing some of Israel’s unique events, such as having the entire population standing still for two minutes at the sound of the sirens during Memorial and Holocaust remembrance days, and the Pride Parade and White Night in Tel Aviv.

Although the two largest cities represent only a part of Israel’s reality, the contrast between the two make more legible the country’s complexity, usually oversimplified with reports on conflicts – right versus left, religious versus secular, sacred versus profane, Palestinians versus Israelis.

Israel is a unique country in a unique situation. That is why its normality is simply “Lo-Normali.”